


True Love and Other Curses

by faithinthepoor



Series: Once Upon a Time [13]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-05
Updated: 2013-01-05
Packaged: 2017-11-23 18:02:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/625038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faithinthepoor/pseuds/faithinthepoor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set during the episode A Land Without Magic</p>
            </blockquote>





	True Love and Other Curses

**Author's Note:**

> In my series this follows my [Fairytale Drabbles](http://archiveofourown.org/works/618763), [Mirror Mirror](http://archiveofourown.org/works/618771), [This Provincial Life](http://archiveofourown.org/works/618775), [Viviane or Nimue](http://archiveofourown.org/works/618809), [Dreams and Wishes](http://archiveofourown.org/works/618851), [All the Better To….](http://archiveofourown.org/works/619484), [Magic Keys](http://archiveofourown.org/works/619497), [Curiouser and Curiouser](http://archiveofourown.org/works/619514), [Snow Blind](http://archiveofourown.org/works/620280), [Spinning Straw](http://archiveofourown.org/works/620288), [Wooden Hearts](http://archiveofourown.org/works/621128) and [Poisoned](http://archiveofourown.org/works/622526)

Today has been, without contest, the strangest day of her life and there should be nothing in the world that could faze her right now. She has become a certified dragon slayer and has raised the dead with a kiss. That really should be enough weirdness for one day but clearly no one told that to the purple fumes threatening to engulf the town. Emma doesn’t understand what is happening but she knows that it is nothing good.

It’s not just the smoke; it’s that the air is thick with fear. She can feel it everywhere. This is very different to the reaction when the curse was broken. The overwhelming feeling in the room at that point was hatred. It had bordered on bloodlust. It was clear that these people believed that Regina had wronged them and they wanted their pound of flesh but they weren’t afraid of her, not like they are afraid of whatever it is that is approaching. 

Emma may not know for sure what any of this means but she does suspect a few things. First and foremost is that Regina has nothing to do with the horror that approaches. Somehow Emma knows that Gold is behind this and that it will end badly. Regina didn’t fear this man for nothing. Emma wishes Regina was here now, wishes she hadn’t let Regina be chased away.

What is coming is huge and they should be facing it together. She worries that she may never get a chance to correct the things she has done wrong. It may not even be possible to make up for her mistakes but if she had have been stronger at least they could have stood side by side as doom came for them. It’s not a lot but it’s better than what she has right now.

She thinks about their last conversation and hopes that, as unlikely as it seems, Regina knows how she really feels. It went a little better than their fight at the hospital but it still wasn’t their finest moment. She was having a lot of trouble accepting the information the universe was firing at her. In particular she was having trouble embracing the task at hand.

“A dragon? Are you fucking kidding me?”

“Henry’s life hangs in the balance Miss Swan, now is hardly the time to decide to be glib.”

“But a motherfucking dragon! This is ridiculous I can’t do this.”

“According to Rumplestiltskin you are the only one who can do this. I’d go myself if I wasn’t worried there was a chance he’s telling the truth.”

“Wait a minute,” she didn’t think she could be any angrier at Regina but it seems she was wrong, “you are sending me to battle a monster and you’re not sure that this will even save Henry?”

“Rumplestiltskin only cares about Rumplestiltskin. He’s a trickster and he only does things if there is something in it for him. I’m not sure that Henry’s life is of any concern to him. I just have to trust that it is in his interest to end the curse.”

“And if it’s not?”

Regina seemed to hesitate and then said, “Then there is no hope and I can’t allow myself to believe that.”

“Is that why you are sending me on this suicide mission because you hope that there’s a chance you’ll finally get rid of me and be able to have Henry to yourself?”

“I know you don’t think much of me,” Regina sounded sad but Emma knew that nothing Regina said or did could be believed, “but there is nothing I wouldn’t do for Henry. I would die for him.”

“And we both know that you’d kill for him too.”

“You say that like it’s a criticism,” Regina looked confused.

“If the poison apple fits Your Majesty.” 

“I never wanted you to die. You have to believe that,” Regina implored.

“Oh forgive me. I didn’t realise that sending me to sleep for eternity was somehow different to death.”

“It is to me. I would never kill you. Not you.”

Emma sighed, “And I’m just meant to believe that?” 

“I thought you were meant to have a special talent for knowing when people are telling the truth,” Regina’s tone was neutral and she met Emma’s gaze but Emma was convinced that Regina was seething with anger.

“Yeah well it seems it doesn’t work on you.”

“I never lied to you.” In response to the eye roll that her words produced Regina clarified, “Not about anything that mattered.”

“Regina you are a magical, evil queen who has held the inhabitants of this town as clueless hostages.”

“I don’t see what any of that has to do with us.”

“Oh my God you are so infuriating. I’m apparently the child of your sworn enemy.”

“Emma I didn’t know that, never for certain, and certainly not at first.” Regina reached for her but Emma stepped away.

“I’m sorry but I can’t believe you.”

“Then I guess Snow has defeated me again. She destroys me without even trying.” Regina had looked beaten. Her head hung down and her body seemed to deflate.

“And that’s why you hate her?” She shouldn’t have asked, she shouldn’t have cared, she should have been gone already.

“She once took everything I cared about from me and it seems she’s now returned to take you too.”

Regina’s statement should not have caused Emma pain but it did, it felt like her heart had been placed in a vice. She wanted to hold Regina and tell her that everything would be ok but she would not, could not, let that happen, “Your lies are not her fault.”

Regina laughed and to Emma the sound suddenly seemed like a cackle. “You don’t even know her and yet you believe her over me.” Emma tried to protest but Regina would not be interrupted, she waved Emma off and said, “It’s ok, it’s what she does. She uses her so called innocence to bend everyone to her will and she’s rewarded for it. People believe her, they trust her, they like her and to top it all off she gets to have a love that’s so damn precious that it breaks curses.”

“Maybe it’s just because her love is real.”

“Don’t you dare say that,” Regina hissed. “You don’t know anything about it. I was good once, as good as she was, better even, and my love was real.”

Emma was silent for a while and when she did speak it was with a whisper, “But it didn’t bring him back did it?”

Regina didn’t answer, not with words, but a tear slid down her cheek. Against all reason Emma moved to her and wiped the tear away. Regina shook and Emma placed her arms around her.

“I kissed him and it did nothing. He didn’t breathe, he did get up, he just lay there dead. I loved him Emma and I know he loved me so why wasn’t it good enough?”

“I don’t know,” Emma’s reply wasn’t helpful but it was honest.

“I’m sorry I tried to poison you.”

Emma didn’t know what to say to that; it was definitely the strangest apology that she had ever received. “Why did you do it?” she asked.

“I didn’t think I had a choice.”

“Where you so desperate to keep Henry to yourself that nothing we had meant anything to you?”

“This was never about keeping you from Henry.”

“Of course it was. You admitted it.”

“Are you talking about what I said while you were throwing me around at the hospital?”

“You know I am,” Emma strongly considered throwing Regina around again as it clear that she needed some sense bashed into her.

“What else was I meant to say?” Regina asked.

“Are you pretending that you weren’t telling the truth?”

“Why would I tell the truth if people could use it against me?”

“I’m not people,” Emma complained. “Why couldn’t you trust me?”

“Emma just a moment ago you threatened to kill me should Henry die.”

“I didn’t really mean it.”

“Didn’t you?”

“I don’t know what I mean,” Emma confessed. “How can I? You are something out of the pages of a book. You should not even exist.”

“And yet I am here and I am real and I am very, very sorry.”

“If, as you say, you didn’t do it for Henry why did you try to poison me?”

“Because if I hadn’t the curse would have broken and I couldn’t allow that to happen, not if you were there to witness it. It would have changed everything. I would have lost you. All I wanted, all I’ve ever wanted, was to keep you.”

“Regina I would have been less than a zombie. How can you think of that as keeping me?”

“You would have been alive. It may not have been ideal but it was still better than losing you to the curse.”

“This curse of yours has nothing to do with me.”

“If it broke you would have known who I used to be.”

“I’d have known who you _are_ ,” Emma corrected.

Regina looked up at her and smiled, “And that pretty much proves my point. All you see, all you’ll ever be able to see, are the mistakes of my past.”

“Well Your Highness they are hard to ignore, they are pretty big mistakes.”

“So says the convicted felon.”

“I’ve paid for my crimes,” Emma said definitely.

“Well then you are lucky because I will never stop paying for mine.”

“You are not going to get me to pity you.”

“I don’t want pity. I want you to understand and accept that I am more than just the things that I have done.”

“Regina those things are unspeakable. You killed Graham, didn’t you?”

“I thought you knew that,” Regina’s reply was almost offhand which was incredibly frightening. 

“It may have crossed my mind but that was when I thought it was impossible for you to have really been involved in his death. It’s a whole different ball game now that I know you can kill people with a thought.”

“It takes a lot more than just a thought.”

“That is not comforting in any way. If anything it makes things a whole lot worse.”

“I’m capable of great evil, I admit that, but if you’d just give me the chance I’d like to try and show you that I’m capable of great love too.”

Emma meant to tell Regina it was too late for that, too late to ignore the many lines that Regina had crossed. She meant to tell the queen that once Henry was safe she was going to take him away from her evil clutches. She meant to make it clear that once the curse was broken she was getting as far away from this town borne of magic as she could. 

None of that happened. She opened her mouth to speak only to have her lips claimed by Regina. Emma failed to fight Regina off. In fact she did the exact opposite of fighting. She kissed Regina back with all of her might. Emma clawed at Regina’s clothes and pulled at her hair.

In the end it was Regina who pushed Emma away. She then rested her forehead on Emma’s and said, “Emma we don’t have time for this.”

Emma groaned before saying, “There is nothing about this day that doesn’t suck.”

Regina placed her hand along the side of Emma’s face, “Promise that you’ll come back to me.”

Emma stepped into the elevator and didn’t quite make the promise that Regina was asking for, instead she told her, “I promise you I will save him. I will bring Henry back to you.” 

In retrospect should have said more. She should have told Regina that she didn’t understand her and that she wasn’t sure if she could forgive her but that she did really love her. Emma could pretend that it was it because she believed she could say it later but the truth is that the moment the elevator started to lower her belief wavered. She believed she was going to die and it might have been juvenile but she was damned if she was going to tell Regina she loved her as Regina sent her to her death.

If she was adamant that she didn’t want to be a saviour that was nothing in comparison to how she felt about the idea of being a warrior. Having a sword placed in her hand did not make her a champion. The fact that the sword allegedly belonged to her father didn’t make things any better. This was not her world and this should not have been her battle. Mere hours ago she hadn’t even believed that dragons were real. She was the last person who shouldn’t have been facing a fire-breathing reptile.

It had clearly not been an even fight. She cowered and she ran. Her brain couldn’t process what was happening and it stubbornly tried to ignore the fact that she was fighting a mythical creature. As a result Emma fought the dragon as she would have fought a monster that she understood. She grabbed her gun and tried to pump it full of lead. 

Her gun failed and it had felt like she was out of options. She would like to be able to claim that using the sword had been a plan but it was last a ditch effort driven by desperation. All that she could think was that there was no fucking way that she was going to die in this hole. She was worth more than that. It wasn’t much but it was enough to allow her to pick up the sword and throw it.

When the sword struck true and the dragon transformed into a weird combination of ash and acid rain anything had seemed possible. Henry was going to be ok and Emma was going to be given the chance to make things right with Regina.

It turns out that perhaps she didn’t deserve that chance because when the elevator shuddered to a halt and Gold peered into the shaft Emma was quick to believe every word he said. She trusted in his lies and felt monumentally pissed with Regina for abandoning her to her fool’s quest. She had just killed a dragon for that woman. Okay, maybe it wasn’t just for that woman but Regina was a large motivating factor and part of what had kept her focused and alive. The thought that Regina could have fled made her blood boil.

She must have been blind with anger because she allowed Gold to trick her. There is no other way to explain why she would have done something as foolish as giving the potion to him. Regina had always been very clear about the fact that Gold was both powerful and evil and Emma really should have believed her. Power and evil are not things that Regina would joke about; she cares about them way too much.

When she scaled the wall and found Regina gagged and bound her heart sank. She knew she had failed. Henry was going to die and not because of a curse or because of a dragon but because Emma lacked faith in Regina. She was right to tell Booth that she is not a saviour. Saviours are fools with blind faith whereas she is fool too blind to know who to believe in.

She pulled the tape from Regina’s face and loosened the binds but she had no idea how to apologise. There were no words for what she had done. She had betrayed Regina and in doing so lost her and Henry both. Emma may have just learnt that her parents were alive and closer to her than she ever imagined but that knowledge didn’t seem all that important when she compared it to losing the only family that she had ever known. 

She’d thought that her only chance for redemption would have been to join forces with Regina to stop Gold but even that slipped through her fingers. At the worst moment possible the hospital notified them of Henry’s deteriorating state. Under normal circumstances she would have seen this as a coincidence or at the most poetic irony but these were not normal circumstances. This wasn’t some sort of karmic justice; this was simple cause and effect. She had failed in her quest and the price of failure was Henry’s life.

In the end she managed to save Henry. She doesn’t really understand how. There has been a lot of talk about the magic of true love but it makes no sense to her. She loves Henry but as much as she hates to admit she loves Regina too. Why should her love for one and not the other should be able to end the curse? She has kissed Regina many, many times. Emma would go so far as to say that their kisses were magical - they changed Emma’s life - but Storybrooke remained the same. 

Emma saw the way people looked at Regina when the curse was broken. They wanted to tear the evil queen limb from limb. Regina knew this would be the price to pay for saving Henry and she never once shied away. She was willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for Henry and she did it knowing that Henry would never appreciate what she had done. Regina’s right to question why her love wasn’t good enough to break curses because while Emma brought Henry back from the dead she’s not actually sure that her love for him is as true as Regina’s. It’s possible that Henry was saved by Emma’s bloodline rather than her devotion.

Whatever the reason for Henry’s resurrection Emma feels guilty for excluding Regina and she’s disappointed in Henry for his callous rejection of his mother. It can’t be changed now, it’s too late. The purple mist is about to swallow them whole.

She has no idea what will follow but this is certainly a moment to hold your loved ones close. She should be holding Regina right now. She hates the fact that Regina is facing this alone. Emma tightens her grip around Henry because he is all that she has and she is horrified to realise that he is not enough. That without Regina, her arms feel empty.


End file.
